Adam Kinney posts tagged with 'channel 9'

3D Views for WPF from Xceed

Adam Kinney — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:33:00 GMT

3D View Controls for WPF (11:24)
3D View Controls for WPF - Essential (3:20)

I remember a while ago in a blog entry that has been lost due to time and many blog redesigns, I posted about building a 3D Windows Explorer allowing you to search files by driving a Manta. I'm pretty sure this was a UT-induced pipe dream and really not a good idea, but the idea of using 3D to enhance software applications is still a good one.

Luckily others than myself have taken the idea of 3D and run with it (in a good direction). I spoke with Marc Laroche from Xceed who has been working on one of their latest products 3D Views for WPF.

Using their controls you can easily display your data in multiple 3D views. There are many preset display themes available, but you can also see in the screenshot you can easily customize the look of the display in the Settings dialog. Another cool feature to keep it simple is that you can customize each view (front, back, angled right, angled left) of the display card individually.

Project Rosetta, From Flash to Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:42:00 GMT

Project Rosetta (13:33)
Project Rosetta - Essential Edition (2:46)

One of the most requested resources we're asked for, is tutorials showing how to use Flash skills when creating Silverlight projects. Friday we launched Project Rosetta, which is a new site dedicated to helping designers and developers take advantage of their existing skills.

In the first article, Rick Barraza has written 9 tutorials that include familiar topics like Inertia, Trigonometry and Image Sequencing. Overall his goal is to promote having fun with Silverlight. Be creative, even exercise "creative recklessness" as he puts it.

New articles are in the works for the site and will continue to focus on helping designers and developers learn Silverlight and WPF. If you have new ideas for articles that you would like to see written, please add your suggestion to the discussion thread.

We've already received a fair amount of posts and comments about the project (Gilbert's take on the designer/developer workflow, Shawn Wildermuth has interesting discussion going on in his comments) but my favorite so far is from Florin:

Excellent stuff! Keep up the good work! Never thought I could do so many things in Silverlight.

To track Project Rosetta you can subscribe to the RSS feed or follow the project on Twitter.

Lawson Smart Office, an exemplary WPF application

Adam Kinney — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:53:00 GMT

Last week before taking off for vacation, I posted a video of Lawson Smart Office. The application is a great example of what you can do with the power of WPF. A nice-looking user interface which the user can easily navigate and understand as well as personalize in many different ways.

Here's a more descriptive quote from Jaime Rodriguez's post about the Smart Office:

Smart Office is a front-end to Lawson's suite of applications -which includes Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), and Custome Resource Management (CRM).
The best description I have heard for Smart Office is Matt calling it an "information workspace". A typical user can spend all day inside the app, as such it is a full-screen applications that simulates a shell -they call it a "Canvas"-. It has everything inside the app, window management, quick task switching, sidebar, drag-drop, shell and office integration, and of course lots of screens or apps to interact with the Lawson back-end. Smart Office aims to make an organization's people more effective, their processes more efficient, and the end-users happier. Smart Office focuses on the user's needs, and focuses on simplicity and meaningful collaboration to improve user and group productivity.

The video provides a short walk-through of the application with Matthew Allbee from Lawson Software. High quality screen capture was used to catch the UI in action.

Lawson Smart Office brings WPF goodness to the enterprise

Enter The Continuum Show

Adam Kinney — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:06:00 GMT

The Continuum Show has begun!

In this new show on Channel 9, we'll be exploring the world of the Microsoft Client Continuum. The Continuum refers to the array of UI technologies available form Microsoft including WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET, IE8,Windows 7, Surface and more.

We'll be showing new features, patterns and practices from experts and samples of awesome applications. There's a lot of stories that don't always make it out to everyone and I'm excited to be presenting those stories with the new show.

Episode 0 - Hello World and Episode 1 - MVC Preview with Phil Haack have already been published and I have a few more in stock waiting to be published. Some of the episodes already filmed include the NBC Olympics site, Kaxaml and a Facebook application built with ASP.NET and Silverlight.

If you have any suggestions for topics or applications you would like to see covered leave a comment.

To stay tuned to the Continuum Show you can follow along on Twitter, join the room on FriendFeed or become a fan on Facebook.

Now back to the editing room...

Silverlight Sidebar Gadgets on Windows Vista 64-bit edition

Adam Kinney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:03:00 GMT

At this time (version 2 Beta 1), in the life of Silverlight there is no 64-bit support. I'm not certain if or when 64-bit support will appear, but I don't think Vista 64-bit users should go without Silverlight. And the good news is they don't have to.

In most cases, running Silverlight applications should not be an issue. IE7 and Firefox run in 32-bit mode by default allowing Silverlight to run as expected.

A different scenario which needs some attention is Sidebar Gadgets that use Silverlight. The Windows Sidebar application (sidebar.exe) runs by default in 64-bit mode and in order to use a Silverlight-based gadget you need to run sidebar.exe in 32-bit mode.

You can do this simply by closing the default Sidebar and navigating to C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar and double-clicking sidebar.exe. Now you can successfully run the new Channel 9 gadget or Xbox Friends Watch in your sidebar and enjoy knowing what the latest C9 video or or when your Xbox friends are online.

If you're happy with the results, you can make sure the 32-bit version of Sidebar is added to your system startup by following the step below:

If you are still running the 64-bit Sidebar, right-click the Sidebar and select Properties.
Uncheck the Start Sidebar when Windows starts option and hit OK
Open C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar in Windows Explorer
Right-click sidebar.exe and select Copy
Right-click the Windows Orb and select Explore
In Windows Explorer navigate to the folder entitled ..Programs/Startup
Right-click in the folder and select Paste Shortcut

Dojo GFX and Silverlight test

Adam Kinney — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:58:00 GMT

Reading the release notes for Dojo 1.0, I found a line item that said "dojox.gfx now includes Silverlight support".

For those in the know this was actually added back in v0.9, but it was a new to me and I've been wanting to give it a test drive since I read about it.

From the Dojo docs

What is dojox.gfx?
dojox.gfx is a cross-platform declarative interactive graphics package. It follows SVG loosely as the underlying model. At present time SVG and VML back-ends are implemented.

What does it do?
The dojox.gfx package provides graphics rendering and manipulation. Under Firefox, Opera and Safari dojox.gfx renders the final product as SVG, under IE it renders as VML.

Potentially the gfx package can allow you to create live and interactive graphing, a web based vector drawing program, view svg files in IE.

Basically you use the GFX API to create a surface and then you can add 2D shapes to that surface to render graphs, visuals or perhaps even Channel 9 guy heads.

Dojo was very simple to get started with and once I read through the GFX documentation I was up and running. In order to use Silverlight as the rendering model you need to follow these steps:

Before adding the reference to the dojo.js file, set the gfxRenderer collection to enforce Silverlight as the output by adding this line:
var djConfig = { gfxRenderer:"silverlight" };
Add a script reference to the Microsoft maintained Silverlight.js file that comes with the Silverlight 1.0 SDK. Dojo uses variables within the script to validate Silverlight as an available render type.
Include the gfx module as a requirement:
dojo.require("dojox.gfx");

My test application renders nine randomly positioned 9 Guy heads which are draggable thanks to the added dojox.gfx.move module. The source is posted and includes a single .htm file with references to the Dojo and Silverlight js files.

Its nice to have the graphic api as a level of abstraction, but since its targeting multiple output types I'm wondering if I'll be stuck with the lowest common denominator. The next test might be a dynamic chart, something like the JellyBar but Dojo driven. This should cover a few areas of investigation such as event handling, text and interactivity.

Overall, Dojo looks very well done and like something I would enjoy using. I may just have to work it into my blog code with the next update.

Designers, Developers and Integrators on Ch9

Adam Kinney — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:42:00 GMT

Robby Ingebretsen stopped by on Halloween last week to not only discuss the holiday of tricks and treats but also the interesting story behind designers, developers and integrators. Robby has done a lot of thinking and work in this space, especially since joining Identity Mine where his actual job title is "Integrator".

Our discussion in the video covers the workflow between the three roles and how Expression Blend fits in to the mix.

I'm really interested in having more discussions like this, especially how this role is now more pronounced with the attention to User Experience in software apps. And in the MS world due to new technologies like WPF and Silverlight.

Shiny new beta for Channel 9

Adam Kinney — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:25:00 GMT

The EvNet dev team has updated the Channel 9 beta and you can tell they've put in a lot of work and they're excited about their work. Duncan's post about the beta even includes a video which involves a homage to HALO 3 using 9 guys. Unfortunately here at the DevCamp the bandwidth is a bit slow, but what I've been able to see looks great.

And I was very happy to see that my small contribution went live as well. Below is the new image that shows when an error occurs.

I expect to see this on icanhasacheezburger any day now...

Channel 9 now using Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:24:00 GMT

Let this day, or more accurately late last night, be known as the day of inline streaming media freedom for Channel 9. No longer is the streaming media restricted to a Windows and IE combination.

Now if you open up a video page in Firefox, you are not restricted to the little button that causes to open a new window. You can play it right there inline.

What if, pray tell, you are using a Mac to surf the web. You too can now access the media goodness from Channel 9, whether you favor Safari or Firefox.

There two more gifts that apply to all viewers.

Firstly, there is now a scrubber that you can drag and drop on the play track starting the video from which ever second you feel appropriate.

Secondly, and perhaps most useful for all of those who blog, you can now embed a Channel 9 video on your site.

<iframe src="http://channel9.msdn.com/EmbedVideo.aspx?PostID=344297" frameborder="0" width="320" scrolling="no" height="301"></iframe>

Granted it may not be the typical format using the embed tag that you are used to, but its more than we have ever had before.

Hail to the Channel 9 team, the Silverlight team and the Expression Encoder team (details)!

And now, I am going to post a recent favorite video right here, right now, just because I can:

Mike Sampson talks about building a Silverlight player for Ch9

Adam Kinney — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:19:00 GMT

I just posted a video on Channel 9 of my interview with Mike Sampson, the tallest member of the EvNet dev team. Other than collecting LEGOs and adding them to his desk collection, he also spends a lot of time in the media pipeline for the EvNet sites which include Channel 8, 9 and 10 and MIX Online.

In order to improve the experience of the playback of these videos while removing a step from the encoding process, Mike has been working on a Silverlight player the different sites. He covers how he was able to reuse code from Expression Encoder and what customizations he had to write himself.

Thanks for the hard work, Sampy! Can't wait to embed a player in my post rather than just posting an image with a link :)

Tyler Ballance is on Ch9 talking about Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:49:00 GMT

I had the opportunity to interview one of the interesting people I met at the SilverlightDevCamp in San Francisco this weekend (full DevCamp recap here).

Tyler Ballance works for Slide.com, the group behind popular Facebook Apps like FunWall and Top Friends. He knows a lot about Mono, Python and IronPython where acts as a contributor to said technology. I'm sure he knows many more technologies and interesting ways to get around in San Francisco, but this weekend he was able to spend sometime learning Silverlight. The video captures his impression of the DevCamp and his experience in recreating one of their existing Flash apps.

My Exit Interview on Channel 9

Adam Kinney — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:28:00 GMT

Rory and I filmed a very serious video covering my two and a half years on the Channel 9 team. We delve into such topics as wakeboards, triceratops and great-grand bosses.

The door in which I use to exit is not just a regular door. First its metaphorical, second its a revolving door. Even though I have switched teams and I am still in the same office next to the same people and I will still be present on Channel 9. Most likely even more publicly present, especially once Channel 9 version 4 appears.

Silverlight Streaming Apps in Channel 9 forums

Adam Kinney — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:07:00 GMT

A few days ago Duncan added support for embedding Soapbox videos into a post in the Channel 9 forums using this simple BBCode style tag:

[soapbox video="(soapbox video id)"]

Very nice and simple. And as he mentions in his next post, I bugged him about adding a tag for Silverlight Streaming Apps. Working tirelessly through the holiday weekend, Duncan has now added the requested tag.

[silverlightstreaming accountid="32" appname="sllogo" width="258" height="100"]

More parameters but also more functionality as a Silverlight Streaming App can be more than just a media player. Looking forward to see where this goes on Channel 9.

WPF Design Surface Beta 2 Screencasts

Adam Kinney — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 07:02:00 GMT

Today I posted two screencasts, created by Jaime Rodriguez, on Channel 9. Its a short two part series which provides an overview of "Cider", the WPF Designer surface, included in the recently launched Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. In the first video, I was really impressed with the control visualizations and navigation. WPF is a very full-featured UI framework which offers a lot of opportunity to create some unique and useful tools within the design surface. In the second video, Jaime runs the tools gamut from Expression Design to Blend to Visual Studio, showing a bit of the workflow possibilities there.

Part 1: Cider Beta 2 : Feature walkthrough

Part 2: Cider Beta 2 : Styling a WPF application with Blend and Cider

Flotzam mashing up Twitter, Facebook and Flickr in WPF

Adam Kinney — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:11:00 GMT

In a recent Channel 9 video, Charles interviews Karsten Januszewski and Tim Aidlin about Flotzam.

Take a spoonful of Twitter, add some Flickr and a dash of Facebook, optionally flavoring to you own taste with custom RSS support and you have an application that doubles as a screensaver flowing data on and off your screen. Better yet, remix the app by grabbing the source code and customize the whole experience.

Kartsen and Tim talk about their development experience especially focusing on the flow of between designer and developer. Tim designed the elements within Blend, handed them off to Karsten who would then write the C# code which reach out and grab the disparate data and display it leveraging Databinding.

Not only is the application mashing-up data, its built on foundation of mashed up code, including libraries such as, Facebook.NET, Flickr.NET and Karsten's own Twitter API built in 4.5 seconds.

Karsten blogged about his experience here, but I would expect to see more from him about the Designer/Developer workflow in the future.

Started using the Silverlight wiki on Channel 9

Adam Kinney — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:44:00 GMT

Part of taking on this new role has involved a lot of research. I'm consuming large amounts of inbound data from multiple blogs and search feeds, primarily focused on Silverlight. I'm happy to see there is a lot of talk about Silverlight and RIAs in general, as well as plenty of people who have jumped in and written about their experiences.

I've started to track relevant links via del.icio.us, but I thought it would also be useful to share and structure this content in a more accessible way. Thinking about the screenshots I've seen for the next version of Channel 9, I thought I'd use their wiki in anticipation of the update.

The first three pages to go up include Games made with Silverlight, Communities and Upcoming Events. The next page I'm planning to add is a list of tutorials.

And in true form to the Channel 9 tradition of "RSS Everywhere", the wiki has its own feed: http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/rss.aspx?namespace=Silverlight

My old job is now listed on the career site

Adam Kinney — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:12:00 GMT

Official Job Listing on the career site

Well its not exactly my old job, Duncan has taken over the dev lead role (Congrats to Duncan), but it does include a lot of the client and UI work I was handling. I like the skill set description they used:

We are looking for someone who lives and breathes HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX and ASP.NET. The ideal candidate will have skills in all those technologies combined with a passion for design and user experience.

But here's the meat of what makes the job great:

Do you like to ship, takes chances and effect change? Do you want to build cool sites that use Silverlight and Atlas to deliver a great user experience? Then come join our group where you'll find a small dynamic team of folks and you'll swear you are part of startup.

Its part of your job to learn the latest technologies, create and innovate.

Now, to forward this link on to a few people that may be interested...

My new job

Adam Kinney — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:30:00 GMT

Two years ago on this very date of June 20th, I started my first day here at Microsoft. It was an exciting day, it was just new employee orientation, but it was my first job in a technical company with more than 20 employees. I was hired on to become the newest web developer on the coolest Microsoft site known as Channel 9. My manager was Jeff Sandquist and my teammates were Charles Torre and Robert Scoble.

A lot has happened since then.

In 2005:

Aug 25th - Ch9 welcomed a new design
Sep 13th - PDC2005 - debut of the inflatable 9 guy
Sep 13th - MicrosoftGadgets launches as a blog
Oct 13th - Clipster was launched on Ch9
Oct 26th - Erik Porter joins the Ch9 team
Nov 1st - MicrosoftGadgets gains forums and a gallery
Dec 2nd - Shows are added to Ch9
Dec 22nd - MicrosoftGadgets gains user tagging and Ajax interface

In 2006

Jan 18th - Duncan Mackenzie joins the team
Mar 13th - Channel 10 goes live
Mar 21st - MIX06 happens
Apr 20th - Channel 10 party in Second Life
May 4th - Channel 10 is redesigned and adds new features
Jun 1st - Starbucks Interactive Cup Brewer appears in the break room
Jun 10th - Scoble announces he's leaving Microsoft
Jun 19th - Sampy joins the team
July 19th - Channel 10 gets a major update
Sep 21st - Ch10 update and we prep the code for multiple site usage
Sep 25th - Rory joins Ch9
Nov 6th - VisitMIX goes live
Nov 13th - The great Flat vs threaded debate on Ch9 culminates
Dec 4th - 9 Guy first appears in Silverlight

In 2007

Jan 3rd - VisitMIX update
Feb - I drew a lot on the whiteboard
Mar 9th - REMIX contest goes live
Mar 19th - SCRUM happens
Apr 23rd - David Shadle joins the team
Apr 30th - MIX07 happens
Jun 7th - Ch9 v4 beta goes live
Jun 20th - I announce my job

Now that we've gone through that short highlight reel, let me continue with the news. First off, no I am not leaving Microsoft. I am actually not even going that far. Same building and most likely same office for awhile.

I will be joining the Client Platform Evangelism Team led by Tim Sneath and my focus will be Silverlight and WPF. If you know anything about me, you know that I will be in heaven spending my days engrossed in these two technologies.

I would like to thank Jeff, Tim, Steve and Ray for their help in making this move smooth and possible.

Woo hoo!

Ch9: Brian Beckman on Game Physics

Adam Kinney — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:36:00 GMT

Enjoying the featured video seat today on Channel 9, is an interview with Brian Beckman on simulating realistic physics in a real-time situation. Most likely if you are using physics like this it would be for a video game, although an OS that used real-time physics would be very interesting.

I am no Physics guru, myself, but Brian and Charles do a fine job of keeping me engaged. They begin by going into a bit of the history of game physics, starting with flight simulators.

As shown in the video image, Brian walks through a few visuals explaining formulas and graphs showing how you might explain and calculate the physics of plane flying through the air. Although it sounds like a bit of work, they then raise the stakes by jumping into the physics of a car on the road. From two fixed wings flying through the air to four rubber tires attached to hubs which are then attached to a car body via various suspension models on a range of various surfaces. Lovely.

Towards the end of the interview Brian introduces us to a few simulations/games/works of math that knocked his socks off. Rigs of Rods and Plasma Pong. Seriously awesome pieces worth checking out (both are free to download) even if you don't like games.

Dr. Beckman's most recent work has contributed to a game which apparently is an awesome driving experience entitled Forza 2. Everyone I know who has played, and likes driving games, loves it, so I would say "Job well done."

And if you're wondering, after watching the video, where you can get his wallpaper, check out the Fractal World Gallery.

A new story and a new theme

Adam Kinney — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:14:00 GMT

Earlier this year, I made a conscious effort to give my blog an overall theme to base my posts on. The concept of the "Devigner" is what I was going to go after, but due to the lack posts about this concept, its obvious that didn't work out. I still believe the idea is interesting, how one who designs interfaces and develops code fits into software development, but I wasn't spending much time into exploring how other "devigners" worked. It would have been an extra-curricular activity compared to my main work and my main work currently consumes a large part of my focus and outside time now.

Which leads into what my new story will be, I plan to cover my experiences and work at Microsoft.

"Oh that's original", you may be thinking. Although, it may not be completely original, the main theme of what I plan to discuss is the development of Channel 9, Channel 10 and any other sites or project my team works on. A lot of the Niners on Channel 9 are always asking about our current progress and what we're doing next, so this should give them some information to chew on. The size of our team and our responsibilities has grown quickly which has resulted in some lessons about software development worth sharing. And we are lucky enough to be tasked with creating new innovations using new technologies, so there should be interesting stories to tell there as well.

Overall I'm looking forward to providing a better insight into what we are working on as a team and hopefully generating stories worth reading. Now I just need to make a new banner for my site...

Cruising at night with KEXP

Adam Kinney — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:47:00 GMT

There is something really nice about the combination of KEXP, Cruise Control and the late night.

I normally listen to music of my own, but when I'm ready for a surprise I listen to KEXP almost exclusively. They are a unique station with music you won't find on most stations. And regularly the music is good enough that I try to remember the name of the band or at least the time that I heard the song. The time works, because the have a real-time playlist on their site with streaming archives, and the name is obvious important to remember, but the key word in that previous sentence was "try". Unique music, brings unique names - "Arcade Fire", "The Trucks", "Apples in Stereo", "My Morning Jacket", "Silversun Pickups". It can take a little while to get familiar with those names and not mash all of them into some form of poetry that is 80% nouns.

So now good music is playing for the late night drive home. Flip on Cruise Control to 65, fast enough to make the curves enjoyable, slow enough to enjoy the ride.

This results in a smile, relaxation and mental images of art I want to create.

Minh came through on some art today. He added animation and music to the Niners interviewing each other. Good job, Minh.

HALO themed "WPF/E" player source code

Adam Kinney — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:40:00 GMT

Mike Harsh pointed out I didn't share the source for the HALO themed player for Scott Guthrie's appearance in Red vs Blue. Extremely embarrassed and questioning my ability to be a "sample guy", I've posted the source. Are you happy now? I'm feeling better about it already.

MSR TechFest on Channel9

Adam Kinney — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:56:00 GMT

Rory just posted the first video from Microsoft Research's TechFest on Channel 9. This is very cool, while toiling away on the Ch9 beta I can listen to what's going on at the TechFest. Interesting data visualization application in this video (I want FastDash). Looking forward to the rest of the TechFest series...

"As a stakeholder, I have to say, I'm very glad, um, about MSR" - Rory

HALO themed player for Scott Guthrie in Red vs. Blue

Adam Kinney — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:58:00 GMT

"Can you make a HALO themed player for the next Red vs. Blue video? It has Scott Guthrie in it and he talks about ASP.Net to the Red team."

"Scott Guthrie in Red vs. Blue? Nice. Sure, I don't have that much time but I can put something together."

/me grabs code from SleekVideoPlayer sample. Throws in new graphics, adds sliding intro panel and popup link at the end. Turns up volume of video.

/presents Red vs. Blue player on Channel 9

/Scott Guthrie blogs about it

Whiteboard Drawings - the "shoot Sampy" blueprint

Adam Kinney — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:46:00 GMT

I don't plan on filling my blog with whiteboard art, but this one is timely and I fill the need to promote the latest video on Channel 9.

We were playing in the lounge. Playing until someone got hurt...

The 9 guy has been energized by WPF/E

Adam Kinney — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:35:00 GMT

So while waiting for this WPF/E holiday, I had the opportunity, to use and learn about WPF/E. This sample of shown to the left is the current WPF/E media player for Channel 9. So I started down the route of creating the best media player ever but once I got beyond some of the basic functionality, I learned hw to use Storyboards and Animation. I was hooked, it was so simple to animate each individual shape or object. I wanted everything to move! This sample demonstrates an exercise in the Animation framework by running a total of 121 animations, all while playing video and serving as a media player.

Its all vector too! No bitmaps involved, which allows for maximum flexibility. This was also done all in Visual Studio, which I was using mainly as Notepad with color coding. Microsoft Expression Studio was announced today as well, so you most likely will not be typing out your own xaml, but I had a lot of fun tweaking each and every object with all of the numbers in view. One thing that makes hand-coding possible though is the speed of the engine. You make a change in your xaml file, hit refresh on your page, and you get instant results.

Ok, I should stop, and take a breather. I'm really excited about WPF/E and I plan to talk a lot more about it in the future. I already have a list of little nuances I plan to share that I learned while creating this guy. Allright, I'm going to go check out the WPF/E forums.

"WPF/E" December CTP goes live today!

Adam Kinney — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:21:00 GMT

9 am this morning, I eagerly updated the Channel 9 site with all of the WPF/E goods we had gathered for the CTP. We've got two video interviews conducted by Ernie Booth and Laurence "Great time to start at Microsoft" Moroney, one with Joe Stegman covering an overview of what "WPF/E" is and how it kicks ass. And another with Celso Gomes, who has been one of the top contributors to the team as a designer and early adopter.

Plus Laurence handed in two screencasts, one on Getting Started and one that walks you through the SDK Samples. Speaking of the SDK samples, they are available for your perusal on the WPF/E page on Channel 9.

The WPF/E Dev center went live today. And thanks to Mike's post, I have the lnk to the WPF/E forums on MSDN as well.

It feels like the Holidays came early this year :)

"And Along Came 10..." article in MSDN

Adam Kinney — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 08:09:00 GMT

Duncan wrote an article entitled And Along Came 10...* that talks about at a high-level how we started the codebase behind on10.net and the next version of Channel 9 some of the architectural decisions behind the scenes. This project, which has encompassed this whole year, has been a very interesting and fun ride. Two years from now, I can imagine writing a book on the wild ride of what has become of Channel 9 and 10 and how it got there.

* The title plays off the Channel9 and on10.net (which we're now just calling Channel 10) relationship of which he is a big fan :)

Ch9 Forum Screenshots are up

Adam Kinney — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:40:00 GMT

This is more a note to myself as most of those who care have already seen, but last Thursday we posted preview screenshots for the new look of Channel 9. A major portion of the work was devoted to a debate we had going on between Flat vs. Threaded view of forums. And now to finish the transition from Image to HTML/JS/C#...

Our deployment video just went live on Channel9

Adam Kinney — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:02:00 GMT

Sampy just posted the video he took of our team while we were posting the last update to 10. We were a bit giddy at getting this update at the door and I think that comes through in the video :)

10 gets an update

Adam Kinney — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 04:32:00 GMT

Last week we updated the Microsoft 10 site. Jeff talks about it here, mainly covering the fact that the code update was written to prepare for the conversion of Channel 9 and reach the goal of one code base running on multiple sites. We've simplified the architecture down to four major constructs - entries, links, tags and users. Tags, which run the show, acting as modifiers for every entry (Is this a blog entry or a forum entry? What is about? What language is it in? etc...) I also took some time to beef up the design a bit and add some oomph, which was noted by Long Zheng here.

Now the cool thing is that during our actual deployment, Sampy has the camera running, in true Ch9/10 style, and interviewed us while we were deploying. You can tell we're pretty giddy after completing the update, but we try and add some value while looking like crazy people. I'm hoping we'll have the video up live tomorrow on Channel 9.

next.design.now is running Oxite

Adam Kinney — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:34:00 GMT

Well this is fun, just running around planting Oxite blogs. David Shadle (designer of the famous Channel 9 guy) who runs next.design.now has ben patiently waiting for me to provide a better setup for him for a while. Previous to this update I was actually hand-editing his rss feed :) Sometimes you have to do what you can to get things moving. I'm excited for him and I really expect him to become even more of (as the site title reads) a resource site for designers creating experiences on Microsoft presentation platforms.

Sidebar gadget dev on Windows Vista RC1

Adam Kinney — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:17:00 GMT

I just noticed that the new documentation for developing Sidebar gadgets on Windows Vista RC1 is up and live on MSDN - Object Model Reference Dev Overview. I'm looking forward to working on some gadgets for Channel 9 and 10. A mini application using simple languages like JavaScript and HTML, and there are few limits to what the UI can look like (no browser chrome), should be fun.

Coming Zune

Adam Kinney — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 03:03:00 GMT

ComingZune.com is interesting site refering to Zune which is something new from Microsoft. The Niners seemed a bit turned off by the site in this thread. I don't think its really that bad, and I dig the music by Regina Spektor and I don't think it was trying to hard to be a "viral marketing site". Its just a "coming soon, give us your email for more info later". Two issues though, it needs a skip intro button, as well as just a little bit of enough like what can be found on Cesar Menedez's blog Zune Insider:

It's Microsoft's new, holistic approach to music and entertainment.

I think that would negate a bit of the furstration, as well an RSS feed alternative to email as suggested in the ch9 thread. All in all, looks interesting and looking forward to find out more.

Channel Guy as Voltron

Adam Kinney — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:40:00 GMT

An artifact found on Jesse's whiteboard during the late nights of work on the 10 update.

This is fun stuff and an idea I plan to run with a bit more :)

Watching the World Cup

Adam Kinney — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 04:26:00 GMT

Sabot on Channel9 asked the question Why doesn't the USA get football? Its fun to read the variety of different posts on why football/soccer is not very popular here in the US. Answers ranging from "why should we?" and "its boring" to "yes, I do get soccer".

This was my first time watching the World Cup. It all started on a plane home on Frontier Airlines, which is a newer airline. Which means the have newer airplanes that have DirectTV per seat in them. I was alone and not in the mood to read much more, so I flipped the TV back on and paid for viewing access ($5). Nothing was on, I'm not much of a sitcom/reality show guy, and the only thing that looked interesting was the soccer match between Switzerland and the Ukraine.

I thought, "Well this is it. I'm stuck on this plane for the next two hours. I'm going to sit here and watch this game and see what the big deal is." Two hours passed and was entranced by the game. The creativity of the players, the ball-handling skills, awesome build-up towards a single goal (that actually never happened) and the team work and strategy of movement. That was it for me I was hooked.

Why might the USA not get "football", maybe because we aren't exposed to such skilled play. I've watched high school soccer on down and it was fun but nothing like this. Its more fun to watch a budding star or see a nice move when you've seen how a professional of 12 years can play.

I really got into the matches, once I saw France and Zinedane play I thought, "man, I'd love to keep watching them play". And I was able to all the way to the Final. Good game, great play, stretched into overtime 1-1. And then something happened, Zinedane showing off his creative and agility head butts Materazzi to the grass. What just happened? Was it that bad of an insult or was there that much stress that he ends his career on a red card? (head butt can be seen here with multi-language commentary)

After that the game was over, France was going to lose. All the wind was taken out of their sails by stupid move by their team's champion. Bleh.

Oh well, at least I have a new sport to watch.

Microsoft Robotic Finger

Adam Kinney — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:12:00 GMT

A tech preview of Microsoft Robotics Studio was released this week, you can find an accompying Channel 9 video here. This is very exciting and a lot of my co-workers have acquired robot-building fever, but one of my favorite releases was the Microsoft Robotic Finger found on the Robotics Dev Center on MSDN.

Which I found to be a well done reference to Michelangelo's Creation of Adam:

This leads to the idea that some day our creations may have a bit more free will beyond the average Roomba.

Sampy to join our team

Adam Kinney — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 03:00:00 GMT

This was already announced on Channel 9, but I'm happy to announce the future arrival of Sampy on our team! Sampy has been a member of Channel 9 since near the beginning (elected as a moderator, even) and will be coming from the VB team. Here's him retelling the story of receiving the good news virtually on his blog. Go Bixy!

In The Office show on Channel 9

Adam Kinney — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:51:00 GMT

The "In the Office" show has recently appeared on Channel 9 which is described as:

This series highlights the new capabilities of Office 2007 for developers. Each week you can expect a short, high-impact Screencast that walks you through a cool new topic and shows how to do it from a developer's perspective. Roll up your sleeves and dig in!

I've enjoyed watching these videos, since I haven't spent a lot of time personally keeping up with the new Office and I really dig the Screencast aspect as they are more visual than the interviews for showing off new software. Today a Office 2007 Preview fly by was posted and its just fun to watch as a gratuitous graphical display of new features available. Looking forward to the upgrade!

Virtual Lab Express on Channel 9

Adam Kinney — Sat, 27 May 2006 00:20:00 GMT

We've added a new section to the playground called Virtual Labs Express. The description from the page reads:

These are 30-minute hands-on overviews of some of your favorite Microsoft products and developer tools. Try them out online now - no need to download full trial versions or dedicate test machines. For a more comprehensive evaluation please visit our 90-minute Virtual Labs.

This is something fun and different and gives you an easy way to test out the new technologies. And, yes, half of you will instantly notice that it is currently accessible to IE-only browsers.

Icon aid from the 10 community

Adam Kinney — Tue, 23 May 2006 04:14:00 GMT

This is very cool. emkaydubu, a member of the 10 community who's been working on entries for the Custom PC contest asked for a copy of the 10 logo in eps format to work with for creating new designs. I passed it along and in return I get this nice email including new icons for 10. In his own words:

I made an updated icon + favicon for on10.net using the vector file.
I noticed that the current favicon for on10.net the color is different from the logo alot more darker, also I downloaded the current favicon and notice it includes the size 16, 32, 48, what i noticed is that the favicon should only have the size 16x16px icon version because in Firefox the favicon wont appear in menus and bookmark toolbars, only in tabs and address bar unless the icon only has the 16x16 size then it will appear in the menus and bookmark toolbars. I also made an icon with the 16, 32, 48 sizes for application use.

That's awesome. Thanks man! Now I've looked at the channel 9 favicon and realize I have a little cleanup work to do.

WPF, where it came from and where its going

Adam Kinney — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:38:00 GMT

I watched this video straight through, full command of my attention. On Channel 9, Micheal Wallent tells the history of WPF and provides interesting information on its current incarnation and where its heading. I had actually heard a little of this at MIX06 during the Mix Chat at the WPF table, but this a clear account of how and why the team and project was formed. Since, my Longhornblogs/Xamlon days, I've been giving WPF sometime to simmer before digging into it. I've been so web focused, but its always been right there taunting, its a good pain, though. After listening to this though, I don't know how much more I'll be able to hold off before diving in.

I took notes throughout the whole video due to the steady flow of information. Rather than drop the notes for the whole video, I'm going to focus on the WPF/e comments, mirroring the my interest in that space. Atlas helps you build dynamic (like truly dynamic) cross-platform HTML applications. WPF provides for a stunning, hardware accelarated, legible without precedant, integration of documents, graphics media experience. But WPF/e is going to hit that nice sweet spot in the middle.

WPF/e Notes from the video:

a subset of WPF, missing heavy WPF features (hardware acceleration, 3d, deep flowing text)
it will run cross platform
open format, no license to publish to (Looking forward to the future tools)
a new codec for media "WMV + alpha" - run WMVs and WMAs cross platform (this is huge, especially noted after work done on 10)
can read XPS - (cross-platform documents!)
team goal is 3 releases within the next 18 months

Stoked, is my word for all of this.